Helix Nebula

The Helix Nebula, also known as The Helix or NGC 7293, is a large planetary nebula (PN) located in the constellation of Aquarius. Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, probably before 1824, this object is one of the closest to the Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae. The estimated distance is about 215 parsecs or 700 light-years. This image contains more than 11 hours of H-alpha data and 3 hours of color exposure. The image was taken with a Takahashi FSQ-106 and a SBIG ST2000xm camera in the late summer and fall of 2006.